Social infrastructure today is probably the smallest infrastructure sector as measured by the value of private financing. Investments in from hospitals and schools to courts and municipal buildings — social infrastructure — are typically structured as public private partnerships in which an investor, over a long term, can enjoy a stable revenue stream defined upfront. The sector is fundamentally interesting for institutional investors in infrastructure that are increasingly looking for “safe harbour” assets to balance their portfolios and also for governments that are often struggling to mobilize public financing for new infrastructure developments.

Some investors think of social infrastructure as a ‘kind of’ real estate. But similarities in physical characteristics between social infrastructure, on the one hand, and commercial or residential real estate, on the other, usually do not translate into similar investment properties. Social P3s tend to derive all thei